Significant field application developments in concert with abundant analytical research have created the basis for a novel conceptual method and a unique apparatus for separating heterogeneous material flows into separate higher and lower concentrate streams using Dean Vortices as extended to consider when elements in the flow and/or the fluid have gravitationally significant masses as a result of non-uniform density or dynamic viscosity, without sacrificing the capability to successfully separate out suspended or neutrally buoyant materials which exhibit uniform density and viscosity in dynamic flows.
Recently, significant research has been published presenting micro-fluidity technologies exploiting Dean Vortices and the mechanism utilizing the opposing forces of hydrodynamic flow and centripetal force as a means of condensing and separating non-homogeneous particles in a fluid. There is no doubt of the importance and the value of these emerging technologies for those applications where micro-channel flow and cellular-sized particles are manipulated with these low-energy processes.
Typical of these implementations are Korean Patent 10-2016-0075568 and U.S. Pat. Nos. 8,807,879 B2 and 8,208,138 B2. These micro-channel implementations are characterized by rectangular flow channels and the linearly increasing radius of a circular spiral, where the plane of the spiral flow is orthogonal to the force of gravity, such that the orthogonal gravitational force applies collapsing pressure to the Dean Vortices across the short axis of the Dean forces.
But the interests of this disclosure target the application of low-energy particle separation from fluid carriers as applied to industrial and utility applications where typical fluid-suspended particle separation technologies involve large energy expenditures using various filter media, with significant maintenance and support requirements that limit “continuous” operations.
This novel variation of the Dean Vortices implementation has been realized in full size and implemented in an industrial application where the process was used to successfully classify and separate at a rate of more than 10 tons per hour.